I saw an advert for an exercise class which promised to burn 900 calories per session.
This makes me roll my eyes.
I really can see the appeal – if you’re trying to lose weight, I know this kind of advert sounds awesome!
But if you’re trying to lose weight only with exercise, you are fighting a losing battle.
You will never out-exercise a bad diet.
A standard sized chocolate bar is somewhere around 200-250 calories.
That’ll take you about an hour to walk off, or about 40 minutes if you do something more intense for the full time! Just for one chocolate bar!
When you then consider the fact that your body will adapt to the activity over time and will become more economical with the energy it expends…. I’m sure you can see the issue with only relying on exercise as a means of losing weight.
Further, it has been shown that people who exercise will expend less energy outside of their workouts. They move less – less fidgeting, more sitting – the tiny bits of movement you do without noticing reduce, and your body compensates for at least some of the energy you’d spent in your workout (about 30%).
This is not to say that exercise is useless. Any exercise type you can think of has a massive array of benefits, regardless of your diet.
But, if you are hoping to lose weight you need to forget the calories you’re hoping to burn during your workout and instead use your workouts to gain (or maintain) muscle mass.
Muscle is calorically expensive to maintain. By having a good amount of muscle on your body, the energy your body needs to just exist will increase (this is your metabolic rate). This means that just sitting on the sofa requires more energy when you have more muscle – and that your body has more chance of using the energy from the odd chocolate bar you enjoy, rather than just storing it on your hips.
Exercise does play a big part in your weight loss journey, but remember that having a decent diet most of the time is what will underpin the whole experience.